Characters
The characters include: Main Ryo Ryo Mizuhara 水原涼 Mizuhara Ryo :Voiced by Daisuke Kishio Ryo is a teenage boy in the 11th grade. Living with Akane since of young age, Ryo is seen as the ideal brotherly figure to his sister, to the extent of being humorously overprotective. When he met his fiancée for the first time, he refused to marry her, both on government basis and personal beliefs. Throughout the series (except the end), Ryo has always been in defiance to the arranged marriage, and he exercises that by rejecting Shizuka and her attempts to court him. In trying to change Shizuka's mind about the marriage, Ryo has tried a few methods. One such method is dating one of his friends, Emiho. Shizuka dismisses it as an act, meant to change Emiho's mind on arranged marriages (because Emiho herself has an arranged marriage). In later episodes however, it is shown that Shizuka's approval is only a pretense for the emotional pain she is going through, caused by the sadness welling up inside her (mainly due to Ryo's relationship with Emiho). The façade did not last long; after being reprimanded by Ryo for invading the privacy of his relationship with Emiho (in which Shizuka did only to please Ryo; she was merely keeping track and taking care of their needs), the pretext starts to fade as Ryo begins to ignore all verbal and eye contact with Shizuka (Being as retribution/punishment or as another refusal method is up to debate). Ryo's silence to his fiancée also did not last long The dating relationship between Ryo and Emiho dissolves after Emiho's rescue from her engagement meeting. Akane narrates that none of the two said they have stopped dating, but after the engagement meeting, Ryo and Emiho act normally as they did before the dating relationship. Ryo finally confirms feelings for Shizuka towards the end of the series. Shizuka Shizuka Masuda 益田西守歌 Masuda Shizuka :Voiced by Sakura Nogawa Shizuka is the fiancée of Ryo. She is in the 10th grade, but used "political power" to transfer herself to Ryo's 11th grade class. Her feelings and hopes for Ryo were confirmed when her fiancé began dating Emiho. Shizuka is mostly Ryo's fiancée because of the Japanese government's secret childbirth program, but disclosures later on reveal that her grandfather has a hand in the matter. When her grandfather was young, he fell in love with a woman from a lower class, but they could not get married due to his parents' disapproval via class status. Instead, he married the woman his family picked. He eventually accepted and fell in love with his wife and forgot about his first love. When his wife died two years before the events of Final Approach, Shizuka's grandfather went back to reminiscing about his first love. After some research, he found out she had already died. In studying some more, he found out the woman had two grandchildren (who were Ryo and Akane), both of close ages to his grandchild. The grandfather, knowing this, asks Shizuka to marry Ryo, as a sign of realization of his lost love, which seems to be his only wish left in his lifetime. Shizuka, obeying and honoring her grandfather, carries on his request, despite her being unhappy at first with a forced marriage. Like Ryo, she at first did not want to be in a planned marriage where she didn't know who her spouse was. The reason Shizuka didn't tell Ryo about the story was because she thought he would pity her, a love relationship that Shizuka would not have been happy or satisfied with. Fortunately, Shizuka was in love with Ryo so deeply and strongly that she didn't care if Ryo pitied her or not. In the end, Ryo, realizing the real Shizuka and her passionate love, came to her hometown, fully accepting their marriage status from having developed so strong of feelings for his fiancée. Akane Akane Mizuhara 水原明鐘 Mizuhara Akane :Voiced by Miyu Matsuki Akane is Ryo's sister, a gentle-minded girl attending the 10th grade class. After her parents died, she had since always look up to Ryo and developed a close affection for her brother based on dependency. Throughout the story, Akane doesn't seem to mind Shizuka and her engagement to Ryo (albeit at one time, she was afraid that Ryo would forget about her after he marries). A sisterhood between the two girls soon formed, in which Akane can perceive Shizuka's emotions and struggles. In one episode when Akane falls ill to a cold, she reveals her deep reliance on Ryo via dreams bearing past memories and by brooding about the future where she believes Ryo might leave his sister for his new, demanding life. The fact that she fears this happening and that she finds happiness in her brother's presence may imply that Akane has diminutive amorous feelings for Ryo. In spite of what may be, Akane does not object to her brother's planned marriage (however, there is little evidence that she supports the engagement, thus placing her beliefs on the marriage as somewhat passive). Other *Emiho *Miki *Yuriko category:Characters